Friday, August 14, 2009

Setting goals


I'm a firm believer in setting goals, both in my professional and personal life. I'm a good self-motivator, but having a goal for myself and telling others what my goals are gets me though those tough days. It's risky, if I don't accomplish my goal, then everyone knows. On the other hand, if I never shared my goals, then I could go through life pretending that I'm doing everything I set out to do.
When I competed in my first triathlon last summer (with only 7 weeks of training), the goal was to just complete the race and have fun. I not only accomplished my goal, I became hooked on triathlons!
Now that I have a few races under my belt, the goal is no longer to just complete the race. I like to set goal finish times for each discipline and the entire race. Doing this isn't easy because while I know the distances of the race, all courses are different (pool vs. open water, flat course, lots of turns, hills, how long is the run to transition, etc.).
For the race this Sunday, I've looked at the course details online, went back to last year's results and looked at how fast other people were, and also factored in my typical pace.

So here are my goals:
Swim: 00:32:00
T1: 00:01:35
Bike: 01:07:00
T2: 00:01:15
Run: 00:53:00

Total: 02:34:50

Based on last year's results, this would put me in the top 10 in my age group (30-34). With 1200 people registered for this race, I'd be VERY happy with a top 10 age group finish.

To put my goal time in perspective, last years winner of the Tri Indy finished in 01:57:49. The gold medal in the 2008 Olympics was won in 01:48:53. Those dudes are fast!!

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